It won't let me progress

Bunpro
#1

I used to have about 30-40 reviews a day and I cleared them and it was good. I then stopped for about 3 weeks (ironically to go to Japan) and now I cannot clear my queue. It’s impossible. It was about 200 and a few days in a row I cleared it but it just add 200 (or more). So I went from 200 one day to 0 and immediately back to 200. I have tried doing 30-40 a day but it adds 30-40 a day. I’m rocking 70% correct most of the time, I’ve cleared a bunch of topics but it never stops.

I no longer do new grammar so I’m not adding to the queue. I do reviews daily. It should be going down but I’ve been back from Japan for 2.5 months, averaged about 30 reviews a day (sometimes a fair bit more), added 0 new grammar points and it’s actually higher than when I got back.

Honestly on the verge of quitting. How is the algorithm this bad!?

4 Likes
#2

The algorithm is extremely basic, simply using fixed intervals of time at each SRS level. You’re probably repeatedly failing items at lower SRS levels causing them to appear every few days or couple of weeks.

My suggestion for how to reduce your review load is to first set ghosts to minimal or simply off (assuming you haven’t already done this) and then basically always pass an item until it reaches 中級者 (I can’t remember what English word they use - intermediate or something). If you fail them from there then you will have a lot more time before seeing it again. Obviously don’t add new cards. This will reduce your reviews although it may mean your grasp of that grammar will become a bit weaker.

The other option is to reset some grammar points to zero. Just remove anything that comes up during reviews which you don’t know or look through the master list of grammar and remove anything you aren’t sure about.

Regardless, it will go down if you keep showing up. If it feels too much then you’ve probably just bitten off more than you can chew, very easy to do when starting SRS as you don’t have the massive amount of old cards yet. I got burnt out on SRS at one point and quit using it for a couple of months relatively early on and I regret it - slow and steady, 一暴十寒 is my SRS philosophy now.

3 Likes
#3

If you check this section of your dashboard and set it to the not-cumulative option you can see how many you need to get correct each day in Order to start making a dent in your backlog. You can use that as your daily target:

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Those are the 40 vocab cards I added for testing they come to haunt me every once in a while.

2 Likes
#4

To go with what CursedKitsune said, it kind of sounds like you’re consistently failing particular grammar points causing them to pile up. This is especially true if they’re “ghosted” which causes them to:

Ghost Reviews are reviews that you have gotten incorrect and come back to haunt you (leeches). If you get an item incorrect, that particular sentence will automatically be added to your review queue in addition to your normal reviews.

Just thinking with fuzzy math, if you’re sitting on a pile of 200 reviews and are only doing 40 a day, you’re only doing 20% of that stack. If you’re getting 70% of those 40 correct, then that’s 12 grammar points carried over to the next day on top of the reviews that were likely already scheduled for tomorrow on top of any ghosts you might have. That’s not really Bunpro’s algorithm (aside from the ghosts), that’s just how SRS works.

Again, with what CursedKitsune said, turning off ghosts or resetting some things is likely your only option.

2 Likes
#5

I had similar effects. For me there were two causes:

  1. Ghosts. A feature where Bunpro creates much more reviews by showing you grammar that you’re bad at. I’d recommend disabling it and never enabling it again. In my opinion it has no positive effects and just creates much more reviews. Might be okay if everything runs fine but if reviews get out of hand it makes everything much worse. I disabled it and saw only positive effects.

  2. Small intervals. The first intervals are very short (one to a few hours). If you have grammar that troubles you and you go through your reviews multiple times per day you will get these cards multiple times. Which will result in increasing your reviews. If you limit your reviews to 23:00 you would get them only one time per day.

In my opinion Bunpro has one error in reasoning: showing you grammar that you constantly fail as much as possible (through short intervals and ghosts). But if you just don’t get something or for some reason you just can’t memorize it yet, this brute forcing just doesn’t work. It will only annoy the hell out of you and create frustration. Sometimes the brain just needs a break or some distance and after a while it will work. Software like Anki has auto-suspend features for such cards and removes it after eight fails while Bunpro just shows it constantly to you.

My advice would be turning of ghosts in the settings, disabling grammar points that you just can’t memorize and trying them again in a few weeks. And limiting the reviews to the evening so you can’t get the same card every hour through the whole day.

Also analyze the problematic cards and why you don’t memorize them. Usually you just don’t understand them really and reading more information and examples about them helps. Grammar is much more complicated than vocabulary and reviewing them countless times without actually understanding them won’t really work.

1 Like
#6

If I was repeatedly failing the same ones I would be fine. I’m not. I’m hitting around 70%+ every time and “Ghosting” a bunch of topics. I’m not adding new ones. I’m not struggling with the Qs, I’m struggling with the fact it keeps adding as many as I clear. I once did 60 reviews at 90% accuracy and it added 63 the following day! There’s no grammar point at all I’m unsure of, I’m fine with them all and the 30% is silly mistakes. I don’t want to remove any because I know them all. It just won’t clear the queue. No matter how many I do or how accurate I am it literally never goes down. WaniKani works the same way in terms of reviews but it doesn’t do this. I clear 100 and it adds 10-20.

1 Like
#7

When I check before reviews it tells me literally like 2 are going to be added the next day. I do 40 at about 70% accuracy and then it tells me 40 are being added. So it’s adding 40 to the queue when I’m failing 12. I will happily sit and do all 200, I did about 4 days running, I have no issue doing it. But it will then add 210 so what’s the point?

1 Like
#9

If you are making silly mistakes then use the backspace key/redo function and just pass it for the moment whilst you shrink the review queue. You could also try changing the review type to the new reading mode which will eliminate any chance of you making an input error or something. If you don’t wanna do either then I guess just be more careful since 30% seems like a lot of silly mistakes.

How many items do you have at each SRS level? This is probably the quickest way to see if you’ve overloaded/got stuff trapped at lower levels or have a crazy amount of ghosts.

Wanikani doesn’t have ghosts, right?

That sounds broken then or you have a tonne of ghosts… If that is really happening as described then it sounds like something has gone wrong. Some people have been reporting bugs when using vacation mode - did you use that?

1 Like
#10

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If you can post a screenshot of this information it might be useful to help see where the problem is.

1 Like
#11

@thewossy
Hey!

Like others said, change ghost settings to minimal, and you can also try using review settings,
I would say, sort them from expert to beginner (which will make the reviewing faster) and also limit the number of reviews.

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or in the app:

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This should help to make them faster and less visualy imposing,
Cheers!

1 Like
#12

I agree with the others. This definitely seems like you’ve got more ghosts than a haunted mansion. Remember, once you get a ghost you need to get the review correct 4 times in order to slay them and they come fast and furious with SRS intervals of 4, 12, 24 and 48 hours. based on your 30% mistake rate, you could very well be getting ghosts correct one day and then incorrect the next, thus keeping them in an endless loop where they keep coming back to haunt you.

Like others have said, you could benefit from setting ghosts to minimum. that will ensure that they only spawn after you get the same point wrong twice. Also if your ghosts are currently over or approaching 50-100, which I suspect is the case, you could benefit from resetting all of your ghosts and then only doing the ghosts that spawn from the minimal setting. As a rule of thumb I try to keep my ghosts below 20 at all times and basically refuse to add new items until i get them down to that number.

2 Likes
#13

Hi there!

I’ve just checked your account. The large majority of what is sitting in your queue is Ghosts (139 out of 193).

Your settings are already on Minimal mode, so I would suggest maybe resetting all your Ghosts.
You can do so by visiting the Reset page and selecting Ghost Reviews under the Grammar To Reset dropdown.

On the bright side, you’re probably getting a lot of progress done towards the Ghost-slaying badges :sunglasses:

Anyway, hope this helps!

5 Likes
#14

:ghost: :ghost:

spooky

I am scared of any hyperlink that goes to a page called “reset”

2 Likes